Gordon Dry Goods Co.- In the Tampa Harness and Wagon Building- 1007 N Franklin St
Gordon Dry Goods Company, three-story masonry building at 1007 1/2 Franklin Street. 1926 Burgert Brothers. . Courtesy of the Hillsborough County Public Library
The former Tampa Harness and Wagon building. 2021. © Chip Weiner
Remnants of the Tampa Harness and Wagon Co. sign can still be seen on the north exterior wall of this structure at 1007 N Franklin St, perhaps protected by the 3-story brick building that was once next door. When It burned down in the late 1990s, it revealed the sign. Tampa Wagon sold wagons, buggies, harnesses, and saddles and was a well-established business until automobiles arrived. By 1912, it was selling Studebaker automobiles. In 1915, The Magnet grocery store took the spot.
Originally built for the harness company in 1895, the three-story building has survived for 130 years. Gordons Dry Goods, a wholesale merchant, moved here in 1922. Fire gutted the building in 1928, and Gordons disappeared, but the building owners rebuilt it. Brownies Clothes Shop, a men’s store, and The Style Shop, a women’s clothing store, took the first-floor retail spaces. Brownie’s eventually took both spaces and, in 1935, was renamed the Wilson Baugh Department Store. By 1950, the Home Furniture Store opened and lasted until the late 1960s. In 2008, there was a proposal to demolish the building and construct condominiums, but it fell through. In 2009, Alpha Group Entertainment wanted to open an upscale dance club, but that never happened.
Plans to fully renovate the building surfaced in 2023. Orlando-based Team Marketing Group announced that Tampa’s Harness and Wagon Building at 1007 N Franklin St would be home to The Robinson Room + Mathers Social, a space they describe as “part coffee and disco room, along with a cocktail bar.” Team Market Group operates several concepts in Orlando, including one with the same name as the proposed Tampa concept. In late 2024, no remarkable change has occurred to the structure's exterior, but records indicate that the permitting process remains active.
Tampa Harness and Wagon- 1007 - 1009 Franklin St- Circa 1910. Photographer unknown. Florida Photograph Collection. Courtesy of the University of South Florida Digital Collection
Harness and Wagon sign, along with faint “Carriage Repository,” can still be seen on the north wall at 1007 N Franklin © Chip Weiner
Advertisement inThe Weekly Tribune Sat Nov 2 1896
Front elevation of 1007 Franklin St. 2021. © Chip Weiner
1007 Franklin St from the north. 2021 © Chip Weiner